Midlands Birding Blog

Florida might be the ultimate family holiday. Every child dreams of visiting the theme parks, and even the most skeptical visitor cannot help but be impressed by their scale. Fantastic weather, great villas and hotels and easy travel make a holiday destination that would be enjoyed by virtually any family. I have been to Florida 3 times, and these have been some of the best holidays of my life. It is unusual though that such a great family destination can simultaneously offer such great birding. Without leaving the confines of the theme parks, you could easily rack up a long trip list. In 3 trips in March/April, with only a handful of visits to actual bird reserves,  I have seen a total of 137 species in Florida! The parks are vast, and have many green spaces which allow for casual birding while you go on rides. Great birds really can be seen in the most unlikely spots. I have seen a White-winged Dove on the Dr Seuss Trolley Ride in Universal IOA, I have seen a Limpkin at Disney ...

When you plan an autumn trip to Norfolk months in advance, you can never count on good conditions. The chances are that you won't get them. So back in August, when I booked a 4 day trip to Norfolk from the 18th to the 21st of September, I was counting on a great trip full of resident specialities, lingering summer breeders and a few early arriving winter visitors which would make for a long trip list. Besides, Cranes, Bitterns, Bearded Tits and Spoonbills are more than enough to keep me happy even in the worst migration conditions. But as the days went by, I couldn't help but start to glance at the winds on Windy.com. And there they were - easterlies - starting a few days before the trip and continuing until the 21st. I didn't let myself get excited; after all, forecasts can be (and often are) wrong, with the winds all to often swinging back round to SW at the last minute just as you've got your hopes up. But this time my hopes were realised. To say that we were lucky w...

I'd been planning this day for a while. A big trip through Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire to look for some birds I never normally see (namely Puffin, Turtle Dove, Razorbill etc.), and maybe even a few lifers. Being on a UK list of 253, getting a lifer that isn't a rarity is a rare thing for me nowadays. The possibility of Woodlark and Honey Buzzard in Sherwood Forest was an exciting prospect. As was the chance of reaching 100 birds in a day, something I've only achieved once before in the UK (101 in Norfolk in January 2019).  Tree Sparrows are actually an unusual bird for me - we saw many at Bempton though Major Oak is around 1000 years old! So, on the 4th of June we undertook it. Granted the time of year for a big day list isn't ideal but I always have exams during late April/May and birding from sunrise to sunset isn't conducive to productive revision!  Waking at 05:00 it was just getting light, and the birding began. The first stop was Sherwood Forest and we were ...

Keen to get out and see some different birds from those of the past few months, my dad and I went for an evening birding on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire on Saturday. We've never made the trip out here before, mostly because the journey along the M42 and A5 can be hellish in normal circumstances. This trip ended up being a great one for socially-distanced birding and we didn't see a single other person the whole time! Our main targets were the trio of night birds available on the chase - Nightjar, Long-Eared Owl and Woodcock, but any other heathland/woodland specialities were very welcome. Being new to the area, I'd done a bit of preliminary research, but pulled up at the Severn Springs car park at 7:30 without much of a plan. We followed a likely looking track out the back of the car park, heading left and soon racked up a long list of singing warblers, including Garden Warbler . As the woods thinned out, we enjoyed watching a Willow Warbler attending a nest hidden und...

This is a birding trip report to Mauritius in July. Birding in Mauritius is not very conventional. Firstly, because there aren't many species you can see and secondly because of the strange mix of introduced and native species that inhabit the island. What little birding information there is available online tends to be from typical 'island-hopping' tours which spend a day or two on the island to sweep up all the endemics. My main motivation for writing this report is that there really isn't much information available online, especially for a family-motivated longer trip. In July 2019, I spent two weeks on Mauritius for a family holiday. The focus was not birding, but I was keen to see as many of the endemics as I could and also a broad range of species because all of the introduced species were generally new for me. All of the island endemics can be seen in just 2 days of birding (or even potentially in just 1) and in this time, the introduced species should take car...